Slashdot Mirror
HP Drops Microsoft Word in Favor of WordPerfect
nexex points to this Financial Times article, which says that HP has dropped Microsoft Word from the software lineup in the personal computers it sells to customers. From the article: "The move follows a decision last week by Dell Computer, the number two PC maker, to replace Microsoft software. Both companies said they would offer WordPerfect productivity software from Corel of Canada instead of Microsoft's Works, a scaled-down version of its top-selling Office software." Nexex writes:"I think it should be noted, MS Works does include the full version of Word."
buy are overpriced non-OS software product... or buy the scaled down version and get the full version free.
HP, why not just go OpenOffice? Word Perfect has just as many bugs, and you'd save yourself (ultimately your consumers) a lot more money.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Quite nice to see a company turn away MS software like this. Still, I'd love to see them to support OpenOffice instead...
Makes me wonder how much stock they have in Corel (or did they buy them out?)
fp?
I am surprised they aren't going for something more compatible with Microsoft Office like Star Office. People are used to using Office products as the 'standard', so why not give them an alternative that will operate approximately the same. Putting Word Perfect on them will just confuse the people who are used to Word, and they will be upset when their Word at work will not read what they did at home. They won't understand enough to install the converters, and even those don't work 100%. I realize that SO and Open Office aren't perfect either, but I am not sure this is the best way to go Microsoft-free for the average consumer.
HP also just became the first big VAR to base "business" PCs around AMD's processors. HP is busy kicking sand in the faces of the big boys. Then again with Compaq HP isn't no small player itself.
It really is remarkable though: It seems that Microsoft was their own worst enemy, and they've pissed off so many of their large corporate partners that they have very few allies, and absolutely no one trusts them. I doubt that Microsoft is going anywhere for years to come, but these are fascinating twists that would never have been considered but a few years ago.
I still use WP to this day, and have since v5 for DOS. Reveal codes is good!! it makes word processing closer to html editing in notepad. Total control over the document layout. I can not stand Word at all with its lack of this hugely important editing feature. Go HP!!!
Morphing Software
It would seem that you can only get Word included with the 2002 edition of Works Suite, which costs twice as much as Works.
Here are some links from newegg that seem to indicate as much:
Works, Standard
Works Suite
~geogeek
Let them raise the price. The problem with the current situation is that customers are eith er unaware, or unconcerned about the MS tax. The only thing that wil raise faster than the fee, would be customers awareness of it.
When Windows gets too expensive then we might see more people looking around for soemthing better.
Word is the standard for word processing on windows. If HP doesn't ship it people will be forced to buy it. Wordperfect hasn't had widespread use since 1995, and I doubt people would want to switch back from the MS word standard. Buying a HP box would now be a bad choice for a student, as most schools including mine use word exclusively and students are expected to know how to use it. Bad move HP!
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
The Microsoft Works Suite, as names by Microsoft DOES INDEED include a full version of Word. You get Works, Word, and Money, and I think Encarta. That's what came on my HP that I bought before I knew better.
Ummm... did you even click the link?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Quoth freefalln:
Sorry, but the poster got it WRONG. MS Works does NOT include Word. Its a separate entity. it is NOT a stripped down version of Word.
According to this Microsoft website, Word 2002 (WordXP) is in MS Works 2002 as the word processor.
People are used to using Office products as the 'standard', so why not give them an alternative that will operate approximately the same.
Word is MS's crown jewel, but Word got where it is today buy stealing users from WP.
Wordperfect is *still* used in the Legal Industry far more than MS office. When I worked at the NYS DEC a few years ago, I didn't have word on my shiney Dell PC--I had wordperfect, and so did everyone else in all of EnCon.
Though it's a mind-boggling hack, Wordperfect and MS Word can and do talk to each other. In fact, having the two of them duke it out might be just the thing that OO needs to get some real work done on it, and get to be a usable beast...
I can't see this being anything but bad for the end users. As much as everyone loves to bash MS, the Office package has served me very well for a very long time, since I switched from WordStar way back when.
I would have to agree that if you're going to offer anything else then Open Office or its ilk would have to be the way to go, don't give products to new users that end up making incompatible files with the vast majority of other users. It'll just leave them confused, frustrated and annoyed.
I'm all for using alternate products, but not at the expense of usability.
MS Works does *NOT* always include word. The MS Works suite, full version ($99) includes word. The pre-installed version of works on your friendly OEM Computer MAY or MAY NOT have MS Word.
Back when I worked for Best Buy a year ago, this was a big advantage of buying a sony computer. They included the full works suite. Many (read: HP / Compaq) only included the MS Works Word Processor, MS Works Spreadsheet, etc.
MS Works Word Processor is a very stripped version of MS Word. It has no spell check, no auto format, and is missing many key functions of Word. As far as I could tell, it's existance was only to whet people's tastebuds to get them to buy office, because after using Word, trying to use "MS Works Word Processor" is a joke.
~Will
sig?
Both companies said they would offer WordPerfect productivity software from Corel of Canada instead of Microsoft's Works, a scaled-down version of its top-selling Office software.
Nice to see so much competition in the painfully crippled office suite space. What's next, Gateway selling machines with preinstalled copies of AppleWorks for Windows?
Hey, maybe IBM will start packaging that Lotus SmartSuite again. That was a real winner.
I think the part that disturbs me the most is this: I work at a college, and this means there's going to be that many more students running around with word processor documents that they can't print in our labs. Headaches, ahoy.
--saint
Except it won't really matter because MS Office has absolutely saturated the market. If you don't have MS Office, you can't trade documents with your clients, and if you can't do that, you're out of business.
The sorry truth is, if this became an issue for MS, they would make the next version of Word completely incommpatible with whatever filters WP has. Whoever was offering Corel WP would simply see their sales drop and find out it was because of not offering MS Word.
I'm completely shocked why the corporate world hasn't seen through the bi-yearly upgrade cycle MS has inflicted on its customers and revolted.
The only real hope would be to start offering OpenOffice as an option letting everyone know they are free to copy it not only to their laptop, but to everyone elses machine in the building!
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
I just bought a computer for my son from Dell, and by dropping the option for MS Office Professional, I saved close to $400. Now, that's Dell setting prices, not MS, but it still saves me a bundle. My son (just entering college) seems perfectly happy using OO.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Here is where I explain this, furthur down the page.
~geogeek
The article is very scant on details, it's merely a statement of what happened. I'm curious as to why HP would replace a stripped down office suite (Works) with just a word processor (WordPerfect)? Perhaps they should also look at some of the available office suites like StarOffice or OpenOffice.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
Yes it does. I work on HPs that have the Works suite installed along with WinXP. Notice that it's called a suite...as in a combination of existing MS software such as Word.
Depending on the school he attends, he may be elegible to get MS Office Professional for $5. If not, he is elegible for their academic version, which runs $150 methinks.
It is quite a good deal too at $109, compared to $339 for Word 2002 by itself. Of course, there may be some restrictions on the usage of the Works Suite version of Word 2002. Works Suite 2002 seems to be marketed towards home users. Perhaps there is a "no commercial use" clause in the EULA.
My other first post is car post.
Have you all just come out of a coma recently? Microsoft owns about 25 percent of Corel. So MSFT won't make as much money as they could have, they still get some percentage off the top of this sale. Plus it looks good to the illiterati (aka the DOJ) who think that Corel is still a competitor to Microsoft.
This is like cussing at Arab terrorists while you're standing at a gas pump.
Before people go trashing on WordPerfect, let me point out some things you might not know about it:
And if you say it's not for you, you're right. It definitely fills an important niche that a lot of other apps can't or don't want to.
----- obSig
This has got to be the biggest oxymoron of the century!
Ask any secretary that actually TYPES for a living, especially the ones that need to do complex text formatting (e.g., legal secretaries) -- the secretaries that type 90+wpm. They *all* agree, and I mean every single last one, that nothing can *touch* word perfect for speed of text input. The function keys, which have mapped to more or less the same functions since 1985 (...earlier?), allow experienced users to do many things in less than a second that would otherwise take quite a while to do with a mouse. WP was, and is still *keyboard* based -- that means that if you know what you are doing, you can do everything in WP, very quickly, without ever taking your hands off the keyboard. I can't imagine ever having to use that horrible MSword to do anything except under threat of starvation. Of course the very best thing about WP, that I have never seen any other WP do, is that the "control codes" option always lets you see exactly why a document is behaving the way it is on screen: each formatting option is just a simple code between text brackets in a text document. There's never any question of why something looks the way it does in WP. No matter what the function, whether it be bold, or column size, or printer type, or whatever, it is just a simple code between brackets. In contrast, MSWord users are constantly baffled by a program that is trying to "assist" the user, by doing things it wasn't asked to do (and of course, cannot be undone) -- which is generally chalked up as being "just the way the program is,;" or else the users just feel like they are stupid and don't know how to use the program properly.
MSWord exists today only because it was bundled by OEMs (originally as MSWorks, in crippled form... though the full version is still crippled...) It never could have caught on otherwise as no one that actually knew about word processors would have chosen it over WP if they actually had to pay for it.
Oh yea, what platforms does WP work on right now? At least these:
Amiga, every version ever made
Linux, every version ever made
Unix, every version ever made
Windows, every version ever made
Mac, every version ever made
I'm sure there are other versions -- the above ones are just the ones that I have personally used.
Do I know what I'm talking about? Well, I used to be a legal secretary before I started accumulating degrees. I have been tested out, several times, at 100+wpm. I was word processing on a Prime mainframe (using a text editor) before word processors (and PCs) existed.
When making a living depends on how fast you get a document out of the printer -- which word processor you use is extremely important.
The typing ability requirements for a legal secretary are far more stringent than any "normal" secretary. Glance in the want-ads in your local paper and you'll see what I mean. Legal secretaries are, on an almost daily basis, required to pump out GIGANTIC documents, always suddenly, always in a complete crisis situation, and always mere minutes before they must be faxed out. It is the rare law office that does not use WP, and the secretaries in the occasional law office that uses MSWord instead are extremely unhappy about it, bitch continuously, and quit constantly.
BULLSHIT!
No school has any business mandating a particular BRAND of a software product (or any other product, for that matter - how many schools mandate a particular brand of notebook paper?). It would be perfectly acceptable to say "you must know how to use a word processor", but to require a specifc one - Again, BULLSHIT! It would even be aceptable to say "you must have a word processor which is capable of reading and writing format X (where X is a published and documented format for word processing files.) But it is completely wrong to require a particular brand of any product.
Besides, you pay for it anyway, this is just making the price more obvious, and giving those that DONT want it a choice NOT to pay for it.
Noooo txt
As someone who's used OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Works, ClarisWorks and WordPerfect, I can say from a writer and printer standpoint, WordPerfect is the best choice.
The ability to have nearly full DTP style justification and control, as well as being a great word processor, grammar-checker and thesaurus, WordPerfect for the price is just the best choice for most people who would use Microsoft Word anyways.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Once this thing is really happening, maybe people like you will stop trying to convince me that M$ office is the "standard". It is everywhere, but I don't accept it as a standard since it's not open enough to work with. OpenOffice has done an incredible job of making it a non-proprietary format but I'd rather just simply reject it. I have no problem telling clients and others that DOC files as email attachments are a waste of my time, even though I can open them with the word processor of my choice.
And as for Corel, I've been mad at them since they gave up shipping a word pro for Linux. Not that they were ever really good at it but they were trying for a while. WINE is not a word pro for Linux.
you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Bah, this is BS. MS sold all their (non-voting) Corel shares a long time ago....
Don't forget that AMDs, which have better performance at lower clock speeds than Intel P4s also cost less.
But HP probably makes the same (or close enough) in profit on either machine.
The difference is that the savings is passed on to the consumer -- but here's the kicker:
The average Joe will not believe that AMDs are outperforming P4s; they'll buy higher clocked AMDs, and discover that the performance is indeed better than expected, for the same price.
Now, not only have they gotten a good deal (vs. buying a P4), they're much more likely to bring return business to HP!
IT people, who need to buy namebrand computers also can flock to HP (for a short time, at least)... It's a great move by HP, as long as they measure up in the other departments...
Its a risk, but HP needs to take a risk - even with Compaq, they are no match for the cost cutting and distribution that Dell offers.
And our official stance on that issue is that anyone who can't be taught how to save documents in rich text format needs to go back to high school.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I stopped using microsoft word when it locked up on me and I lost my assignment. Ever since, I've been using linux and OO and haven't looked back. People can complain all they want about windows and office, but if the situation is to get better, the general public needs to learn how to use linux.
Have you ever considered Gobe? It rocked on BeOS, and now its available on the Windows platform. And if you don't want to trust their marketing, then here's a review from Ars Technica. And if you still want to complain, go use vi or emacs or even notepad.
Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
As for this whole argument about law offices, missing this market doesn't seem to have harmed Microsoft.
"Reveal codes is good!! it makes word processing closer to html editing in notepad."
I think comparing to DreamWeaver is more accurate for HTML editting.
Before anyone commenting on WordPerfect vis-a-vis OO/SO, s/he should spend a few hours working with experts with both suites.
WordPerfect is so far superior, it is funny to even talk about OO in the same sentence.
BTW, the version of WordPerfect being bundled, version 10, is actually the weakest of the three 32-bit versions (but still far better than Microsoft Word in producing "conventional" documents).
Wait until Corel puts its acts together and bring the quality of its next version to the level of WordPerfect 8. But even WordPerfect 10 is good enough for enterprise use. If you don't believe me, go to any store that sells SONY PCs and play with the program that has been pre-installed in the VAIOs.
We should never expect Microsoft to produce an office suite for Linux, but Corel may (Corel's CEO recently and repeatedly stated that Corel will consider a native Linux port if there is a market). Recent moves by HP, SONY, and DELL from MS Office to WordPerfect actually send a much bigger message: they may pave the way for their eventual migration to Linux desktops.
In other words, because the profit margins are so thin, by selling Windows machines, hardware companies are only helping Microsoft. Moving to Linux not only cuts down the price (which is indeed a very minor consideration), it also allows the hardware vendors to become software distributors, i.e., allowing them to retain some control over their customers.
However, there is one critical piece missing in the Linux puzzle game, and that is an enterprise level wordprocessor. WordPerfect will fit this need perfectly.
I understand OpenOffice 6.0.1, and more particularly KOffice (1.2 rc1), have made significant improvements. However, nothing can replace the user experience that must be accumulated over time. WordPerfect 8 was built based on years and years of usage and tens of millions of user experience. Corel management screwed up on WordPerfect 10, but the person in charge was recently fired. And with the recent service pack, WordPerfect 10 indeed is almost as powerful and reliable as version 8.
Works Suite includes Word, Works the "simple version" does not.
cl
Reply . . . let's get it over with.
Bloody Backwards Window-ites.
plain/text
Metadata rocks.
Thanks for playing.
schools have computers, at least mine does. On them the program installed is word.
I have had tests before where I had to write an essay in the alloted time in the computer lab, and if you don't know how to use word then you are screwed.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
For tables see:
http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~msevior/abiword/merg eCells.png
Martin Sevior
AbiWord Developer
My college is a good example. One of the required courses - no matter what your major - is called Basic Computing. It sounds like a joke class, but it's not; aside from learning how to turn the computer on and off, you also learn how to use Word, Excel, and even Access. I've been using computers since I was 8 and this class was by no means an "easy A" (since I had never before used Word, Excel, or Access). Every student who expects to graduate must take this course, even the people majoring in stuff like "Turfgrass Management" (I kid you not).
They also offer telecommuting courses that you can take over the internet. Most of the general education requirements (English, History, Art Appreciation, Psych, Maths, etc) can be taken online via email/web. The catch? OpenOffice or StarOffice isn't going to get you anywhere; you submit your work as Microsoft Word files or you might as well not submit it at all.
Do I like it? Nope. But it's the standard and it sure makes things convenient. Imagine trying to teach one of these courses, and having students submit their work to you in 20 different formats. Now imagine that you, the instructor, only know how to use Windows; and that annoying guy keeps sending you "Linux" files that you don't know what to do with. It helps immensely to have everyone on the same page.
If only we could get more people familiar with the concept of "plain ASCII text."
Before anyone commenting on WordPerfect vis-a-vis OO/SO, s/he should spend a few hours working with experts with both suites. WordPerfect is so far superior, it is funny to even talk about OO in the same sentence. BTW, the version of WordPerfect being bundled, version 10, is actually the weakest of the three 32-bit versions (but still far better than Microsoft Word in producing "conventional" documents). Wait until Corel puts its acts together and bring the quality of its next version to the level of WordPerfect 8. But even WordPerfect 10 is good enough for enterprise use. If you don't believe me, go to any store that sells SONY PCs and play with the program that has been pre-installed in the VAIOs. We should never expect Microsoft to produce an office suite for Linux, but Corel may (Corel's CEO recently and repeatedly stated that Corel will consider a native Linux port if there is a market). Recent moves by HP, SONY, and DELL from MS Office to WordPerfect actually send a much bigger message: they may pave the way for their eventual migration to Linux desktops. In other words, because the profit margins are so thin, by selling Windows machines, hardware companies are only helping Microsoft. Moving to Linux not only cuts down the price (which is indeed a very minor consideration), it also allows the hardware vendors to become software distributors, i.e., allowing them to retain some control over their customers. However, there is one critical piece missing in the Linux puzzle game, and that is an enterprise level wordprocessor. WordPerfect will fit this need perfectly. I understand OpenOffice 6.0.1, and more particularly KOffice (1.2 rc1), have made significant improvements. However, nothing can replace the user experience that must be accumulated over time. WordPerfect 8 was built based on years and years of usage and tens of millions of user experience. Corel management screwed up on WordPerfect 10, but the person in charge was recently fired. And with the recent service pack, WordPerfect 10 indeed is almost as powerful and reliable as version 8.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Yes, I'm sure if you know your way around the 15 function keys, and understand how to read the control codes then WP is lovely to use.
I don't... I find Word easy enough to use, they keep adding features that get around my problems (e.g. format painter), and after a while, you come to understand why it's doing what it's doing... you empathise. Well, some of the time anyway.
I guess my point is that Word is easy and friendly if you're NOT a 90wpm legal sec, but someone who does a different job but still needs to knock out the occasional half-decent document.
Oh, and you can undo anything that word helpfully (bless it) tries to do for you. Ctrl-Z undoes first word's attempts at helpfulness, and then whatever you last did.
Watch me disappear beneath the waves of ACs now for having actually stood up for microsoft...
If you can't see this, click here to enable sigs.
I think I missed that one, when did this earth shattering news happen? What are they going to replace "microsoft software" with, BeOS?
I know that Corel Suite is cheaper than Office, but is it cheaper than Works? I thought Works was around $100. Sure you get more with the Corel Suite, but if it's me I want the machine price to go down. But, then again they probably aren't targeting people like me. *grin*
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Try asking your mom/grandmother if they've heard of StarOffice or WordPerfect. That is your answer.
WordPerfect Office is freaking $5 to OEM's. That is close enough to free (hell they may be getting it for free, that wouldn't hurt Corel either since no one is buying it anyway).
It's all about maximizing revenue. Oh and BTW the Word in works is stripped down (less templates, clipart, etc) and there is no comparing excel, access, outlook and powerpoint (oh yeah and publisher) to MS works (oxymoron if i've ever seen one) tools. And since when does a company care about saving their customers money? they only care about saving themselves money.
Well, at least people aren't paying the M$ Office tax in the first place. If people don't like WP they might try that OpenOffice thingy that's on the PC magazine cover CD. That wouldn't happen if M$ Word was preloaded.
The company I work for chose WordPerfect back in 1995. We went to Word for a while in 1998 but upgraded back to WordPerfect when MS got into DOJ trouble again (we figured that if MS was on our payroll to develop software and they broke the law, we'd have fired them so why would we go buy their software now?). It turned out that most of the time, WordPerfect can read Word without too much difficulty. Better yet, it can save to nearly any version of Word.
Sadly for Microsoft, Word is not nearly as adept. It can barely convert to WordPerfect 5.1. Because of this (and nearly 40,000 WordPerfect documents on our networks), using MS Word in our organization would be reckless.
Finally, in the last three years, we've acquired 3 other companies. I converted all of them to WordPerfect Office 2000 (upgrading all locations to WordPerfect Office 2002 this week). Some users were so MS Word brainwashed that they panicked...and continue to panic even today. They believe that if it's not MS, it's not good. They also can't understand why we don't use AOL to get online! Needless to say, I don't worry too much about them. The rest of the organization wants to create word processing documents...quickly, reliably and professionally. WordPerfect does exactly that. Yes...you can share files and yes, it is more advanced than Word when it comes to complete control over formatting.
With all this going for it, why wouldn't HP and Dell offer this software? And the more people who go home with it, the better off we all are. We've never regretted our decision and we've never been hurt by it. Kudos to these industry leaders for taking the hard, but high road.
Unix, every version ever made
Every UNIX is a very bold statement.
Mac, every version ever made
There is no OS X version.
Ever since I've received my first Pentium class computer back in 1995, I have used Microsoft products for office productivity. First it started out with Works - which imho was a total piece of crap. The formatting sucked, it crashed constantly on my first Gateway, and most of the time I just used Notepad. Then after receiving a used copy of MS Office '97 I was finally happy with my office productivity lifestyle. But then I looked into StarOffice 5.2 - I hated the desktop mangling whatcha-ma-call-it that changed your desktop around in Windows. Then I moved to OpenOffice which was nearly impossible to install properly on Windows up until version 1.0 (finally got OO to work on Win2k). I wasn't happy with OO's stability and reliability on Win2k. Then I bought a Sony Vaio FX-A series laptop that came bundled with WordPerfect, and I was impressed. Yea, it didn't handle DOC files, but that wasn't a concern. But what WP did was it provided me with a very thourough office suite without getting in my way with talking paper clips, grammer checker (read: MS Office 2000 >) and it just did what I needed it to do. So I say cheers! to HP for trying something new and I say kudos to Corel for such a nice Office productivity suite!
Although certain aspects of the DOJ case against MS are important, for the most part I always asserted that the market would correct itself. Apple is gaining ground thanks to the fact that they are finally making a great OS, and now MS is losing to big OEM's on their office products. As long as the competition doesn't suck, MS will not be a monopoly.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Dell still shows Works as their "cheap" option. HP however already has Corel as their "cheap" option.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
I just bought a computer for my son from Dell, and by dropping the option for MS Office Professional, I saved close to $400.
It sounds as though, by dropping MS Word, Dell computers just dropped in price by a _lot_. No wonder HP had to follow suit! I mean, what does WordPerfect cost? $50 tops, probably not even that for a big OEM purchase.
WordPerfect is just plain better than Word. You type it, and it does what you want it to. No crazy formatting problems like with Word.
I use WordPerfect 8 on Linux and Windows and WordPerfect 3.5e on the Mac.
By the way, what ever happened to WP for the Mac? WP 3.5e is from about 1997 and it is the last version on the Mac. I can't even find a Word 97 filter for it. Bring it back on OS X!
I feel the need to clarify on the following statement:
"The legal profession still relies on it - your lawyer uses WordPerfect and most legal forms are available in that format."
This is absolutely not true.
Now, you may definitely argue that a larger proportion of the legal community relies on WordPerfect than does the general office community. However, the legal profession itself does not rely on WordPerfect.
My father is a lawyer. I set up his law firm's computers. I've known many other lawyers and set up their law firm's networks. What you said was true 3-5 years ago, but most of them have now switched to Word.
And as for legal forms being in WordPerfect format, with the hundreds of legal forms I have had to use, they have been in one of three formats:
a) Hard Copy (as in, a piece of paper that you have to use a typewriter to type on)
or, more often,
b) PDF
or
c) a proprietary format that has to be used with a $5,000-$50,000 piece of crappy software.
ALL of the government forms that a law firm needs are in PDF. Most of the other things that lawyers used to get in hard copy (for instance, the legal books that you see in their offices) are now available for a subscription fee via sites like FindLaw.com. About 50% of the forms that come through a lawyer's office are hard copy, 40% are PDF, and 10% are proprietary, and honestly, I haven't seen a WordPerfect law document in years. Most of the hard copy ones are saved directly to either Microsoft Word or PDF via Acrobat, so the number of hard copy forms will continue to decrease.
From reading your post, it sounds like you haven't encountered WordPerfect in a couple of years, either, and are basing your opinions on what you saw a few years ago. The Internet is becoming quite integral to any lawyer these days, and as such, the number of non-Word proprietary formats for documents is decreasing rapidly (especially since there was a huge government initiative to convert everything to PDF.) Thus, your post was accurate as of a few years ago, but is no longer the case.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
I've got a Northgate Omni keyboard at work (purchased right before they tanked) and a Unicomp knockoff of the old IBM Model M keyboards at home. Both are better than your standard throwaway crap keyboard, but neither one quite feels perfect. Any recommendations?
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Word Perfect was once the de-facto standard. That didn't stop MS-Word from taking over the market... which it did not by dint of being a superior product, but because of Microsoft's strong-arming PC vendors into supplying only MS-Office on MS-Windows machines.
Word Perfect 5.1 was the best word processor out there, bar none. (Especially on the NeXT.) Novell purchased Word Perfect Corp, though, and screwed it up with 5.2 and 6.0. 7.0 wasn't much better; I haven't used it since, as I've discovered LyX (and fuck compatible file formats; if I want to share a document, I'll send a PDF), but I've heard the recent versions are really quite nice.
However, though Microsoft is finally starting to catch up to WP 5.1 in usability and functionality, they *still* haven't provided anything as important as the "Reveal Codes" option. So, in many ways, Word still lags behind Word Perfect.
Mostly, your "de-facto standard" thesis is a straw man. As we've seen, only real standards survive; de-facto standards may fall at any time. And it's about bloody time the MS-Office hegomony was broken.
At least, that's my opinion. I could be wrong.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
too bad the real moderators were banned....
I found this old version on Ebay if you were curious. here.
totally off topic but ...
wtc2002 kinda reminded me of Oath of Fealty.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Please post a URL to a news story or an Edgar filing or a whatever. I can't find any record of the transaction.
wtf, click type hit enter at line breaks. What usage of word is required for an essay
Now that I think about it, I never presented one paper all through high school that couldn't be represented "well enough" in ascii. And most of college the only modification was the bolding of sub headings..
thats perhaps the most retarded reason I've ever heard...
Excel is the killer app and I've still NEVER seen a decent substitute for a complex multi-sheeted calculation rich spread sheet. I have OO, and Star Office loaded as well but neither does the job. As for a word pro I could use notepad, or heck even VI when you get right down to it. Props to them for exploring alternatives, WP suite 7.0 was quite nice but why make life harder and sacrifice that 'synergy' that Word and Excel have by replacing just one half the tool-set. Given my druthers I'd use OO and screw the Visio/Excel issues but work requires that I use such documents.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Is there any chance that the Word that comes with even the $99 Works is not full-featured?
Probably some EULA difference, some restriction that they put on $99 Word that they don't put on $350 Word.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Will there be WP export? Having seen the SDK for WordPerfect, it seems like you could just use the 'write WordPerfect format' DLL they include to make it relatively easy to have this.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Frankly, all term papers, research article, etc are done using LaTeX. Instructors do NOT want a Word document, as its layout on screen depends on the printer you have selected.
First choice is always PDF/Postscript. Second choice is source LaTeX.
Why LaTeX ? All research papers worldwide are done using LaTeX. Publishers provide their own LaTeX stylesheet, so providing a LaTeX source saves them time. LaTeX looks really profesional, and you don't need to waste time doing layout.
> HP also just became the first big VAR to base "business" PCs around AMD's processors.
Wow, AMD + Business PCs. What a combination. And I thought businesses valued reliability and stability. Perhaps they can throw Windows Millenium, Norton CrashGuard, and Klez on them while they're at it.
I hope these same businesses don't try to upgrade anything, especially the video card. I suppose it will make for great LAN parties, since Athlon's are SO great for gaming.
>>My college is a good example. One of the required courses - no matter what your major - is called Basic Computing. It sounds like a joke class, but it's not; aside from learning how to turn the computer on and off, you also learn how to use Word, Excel, and even Access. I've been using computers since I was 8 and this class was by no means an "easy A" (since I had never before used Word, Excel, or Access). Every student who expects to graduate must take this course, even the people majoring in stuff like "Turfgrass Management" (I kid you not).
Hell, Carnegie-Mellon has a similar thing from my understanding. And they've got one of the best comp sci programs in the world!
Shouldn't we all be dancing in the streets!!?? Microsoft is losing its grip one finger at a time...
I'm wondering what Corel is charging OEM's for WordPerfect Office nowadays? Considering that they are hard up for customers at the moment, I'll bet that they gave HP a sweet deal in order to get some volume sales.
Hell, for all we know, Corel might be offering WordPerfect Office for LESS that Microsoft is charging for Works! Considering the the basic version of Works doesn't come with any of the full-featured addons like Word or Microsoft Money, this might be a good deal for both HP and consumers alike.
Just what kind of an essay are you going to write in a timed environment that requires more than typing? Are you graded on inserting Excel graphs? Do you need to use an Essay Wizard?
Wake up. Unless you keep your shoes on with velcro, you don't need to know how to use word. What you need to know is how to write an essay- if you don't know that, then you are screwed. Not "knowing" Word is a pathetic whine. I don't know how to use Word. It's never stopped me from turning out what I want to in Word. If my home network were a little more sane, I'd be able to do my printing from Linux and I could kiss MS goodbye.
I really liked Word 6.0, though. It was great, and you didn't need to know it.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
You're either misinformed or purposefully bending the truth. WordPerfect has been the standard for word processing under Windows in many areas of the "real world." Legal documents for example usually must be in WordPerfect format or on paper in order to even be looked at by most lawyers. The same is true of almost all financial documents and even little things like memos in the upper levels of management at many fortune 500 companies.
Microsoft has put a lot of money into funding schools (especially smallish schools) under the condition that they'll offer classes primarily requiring MS Word for their document format. I used to be the Assistant I.T. Manager for one of those small schools and I was the one who constantly got harassed by MS salespeople making such offers. (It should be noted that the school folded under the pressure of MS's marketing less than three weeks after I left, and I really can't wholly blame them. They needed the funding badly.)
MS has been trying for years to make Word the de facto standard for Word processing, especially in younger people. That you say what you did the way they did means that they're slowly succeeding... damn it.
-----------------------------------------
Remove the Greed which plagues mankind.
OpenOffice is as good, but also gets you flexibility of choosing an operating system.
I happily use WordPerfect on Windows every day, and I have my choice of apps.
/. users should appreciate it.
e rfect/
The reason: "Reveal codes", which shows you the source of the document -- the text with all the formatting codes, with all the benefits you can imagine: You can see exactly which codes are doing what and where, insert and edit codes precisely, search for codes, double-click on one to change it, etc.
I always keep it open in a small window at the bottom, so I simultaneously get the source and the WYSIWYG. I'm not sure it appeals to the typical end user, but
Also, it should be a very good low-end XML editor: It natively uses formatting tags [b]like this[/b] (open Reveal Codes and see), it's supported SGML (an HTML/XML precursor and (superset?)) for over a decade and XML for a couple years. I've never had to try, but these guys think so (or try searching Google for much more info):
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/05/31/wordp
Why be mad? In the real world, if a commercial product isn't bought by enough people, it goes away. That's how it works.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
are the editors on /. particularily lazy today or just want headlines? Read the fucking article:
They dropping Microsoft Works in favor of WordPerfect. Not Microsoft Word.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
"YES, I'm a Christian. Got a problem with that?"
Perhaps if many Christians did not take the attitude that disagreement==persecution, they would be happier and seem less...fanatical. Your approach , makes it seem as though you think that the world is out to get you because of your religious beliefs, when, in fact, it is more likely to dislike you for your abrasive personality. Just my two cents...
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Doesn't Microsoft own a good portion of Corel stock allowing them a good seat on the board?
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I support many WordPerfect users. Most Word documents open without a problem, and Word imports the WordPerfect docs successfully.
0 0/wd97vwr 32.aspx
Of course, the conversion isn't perfect. Advanced layout suffers. For most documents it looks OK, but the document source shows the formatting to be a fragile mess; send it back and forth a few times and I'm leary about what would happen. Unless there is editing to do, I set the users up to use a free Word viewer:
http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/20
Corel changed their logo sometime ago to some wierd head thing, time for a new /. logo.
-- I speak only for myself.
I've never used it, because I bought the thing for my girlfriend, and she only liked it because 'they're pretty'. So three of the five big names have chosen Corel over Microsoft. What about Compaq and Gateway? Yes I know HP bought Compaq out.
Give me a break, WordPerfect is still more functional as a word processor. The interface is better and the placment for items in the menus and the toolbars are more functional.
_ _
You don't have to know any function keys or know how to read the reveal codes. Every tester in the software development labs I met prefer the interface of the WordPerfect app itself. Many still like Excel over Quatro Pro and would be lost without NT so they are not exactly anti-Redmond. They test lots of Office apps for creating documents in their testing.
I used WordPerfect8 in Linux and on Windows for awhile and liked it a lot. Try out a recent version and you may be surprised. If you have the chance, get a copy and use for a week when you have a few things to type up.
_______________________________________________
ACK
WordPerfect may have improved this since the last time I used it; if so someone please correct me. But as far as I know, WordPerfect doesn't have anything that come come even close to MSWord's Equation Editor. If you're doing anything even remotely technical (even a research report for your Physics class), this is extremely useful, almost necessary. The only other software I've used that can compete with MSWord's equation editing is LyX (a LaTeX frontend), and that currently doesn't run natively in Windows (though it does run on Win32 if you have cygwin and the Win32 port of XFree86, which most people don't).
Which is why for me it's LyX in UNIX, and MSWord in Windows.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
My anecodotal evidence is different: I support 4 law firms, all of which use WordPerfect (not because of me -- I support other businesses that use Word).
Certainly, a number of firms have switched to Word. The secretaries I know cursed at the loss of control over their docs (Reveal codes, which allows direct editing of the document source), and the 'help', like clippy. One secretary's hard day:
Clippy: 'It looks like you're writing a letter, would you like some help?'
Legal Secretary: 'No I don't want your #@$%! help! Get the @#$! out of my way! I've been writing letters for 20 years! Who the $##! are you??!!'
When your son gets to college on their fast network, he's far more likely to go and "evaluate" a copy from a dorm buddy or KaZaa. Not to mention that most professors these days seem to prefer Office as a standard (next to PDF files).
True, many Christians seem to have a persecution complex. This comes from stories from the New Testament (which comes from a time when Christians really were prosecuted) and stories from nations in which Christians still are proseduted (ie. Sudan). Seriously, if you read some of the Roman documentation of the time out there, you will see that prosecution of Christians was very real back in the day.
However, I don't think Europe and the Americas are places where Christians have much to fear (with a few exceptions, I know... don't try being the wrong kind of Christian in Ireland.).
I can sympathize with that guy taking a defensive attitude on Slashdot, though. I doubt that many people here are favourably-disposed to Christianity. I doubt, for example, that I'd have any chance of getting modded up if I posed a quotation from the Bible that I felt relevant to a discussion here on Slashdot.
Anyhow, I can see both sides, here. I just wish that everyone, regardless of their religion, could bring the motivation for their beliefs on some of the ethical issues that come up here into the discussion, without fear of being ridiculed. I'm a Christian, but I'd be very interested if a Buddhist or Muslim brought the teachings of the Dhammapada or Qu'ran, for example, into a discussion here.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
From the article:
Microsoft last financial year generated $9.6bn of its total $28bn of revenues from desktop software.
Anyone know the breakdown of where the other $18.4 billion came from? I can't even begin to hazard a guess, but I had thought, perhaps naively, that desktop software was a bigger percentage than that.
This also raises another problem for MS: at least with Word 2000 (the only Word I have access to), the import filters for Wordperfect files are old (latest is WP 6!) and horrid, while the Wordperfect import filters for Word are recent and quite good. If this catches on, MS will be in deep kaka on the file-compatability scene. I suppose they could just throw more of their monke^H^H^H^H^Hprogrammers at the problem, but they'd have to at least wait until the next version to roll it out.
(Oh wait, what am I talking about? MS Office is part of the Operating System!)
if you want more control of your document and you like reveal codes then latex is for you. really though to make something bold it's just:
\bold{something in bold}.
there might be a bit of a learning curve, but it's worth it. the quality of the document is much higher than anything i've seen a word processor put out. it takes eps for figures which just rocks when printed.
latex is free and comes with most linux distros. there's even a version for windows, search for miktex on google, but i've never used it.
it's a bunch of macros to interface with tex, written by that uberpimp donal knuth.
-- john
Do they still include Notepad? Because you know that's the only reason I buy Windows PCs. Everyone used to have Notepad but then they switched to the Boston stapler, and they were married, and if they take my Notepad away again I'll... I'll... OK...
It's not the word processor, it's the database.
WP Office has a halfway-decent competitor to Access/Works in Quattro Pro. If Corel was still selling/supporting the Linux port of WP2000, I'd be pointing my organization in that direction in our next upgrade... unfortunately, the problem with Star / Open Office, KOffice, etc., is the lack of a good low-end database solution with a cute GUI front end and a quick learning curve. Even the Microsoft developer zealots hate Access - it breaks all the MS OOP 'rules' - but the idiot end users can set up their functional DB apps with little or no support. In my opinion, this is the thing that keeps the current crop of open source suites from going mainstream. If I am wrong - if there is an acceptable open source alternative to Access out there, that really computer-challenged people can get along with - please let me know.
How many clueless imbecile (but successful) sales reps have I supported with their precious contact databases built in the bastard Works db or in Access? Too many to recall.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Smart move on the part of these two vendors and good for keeping competition alive.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
wp is to word processors what vi is to text editors?
Here's why:
I could go on, but that's the flavour of it. Word is fine for uncomplicated documents with the occasional Excel pie-chart, but take it out of that narrow domain and it gets really squirrely. WP seems to cope beter with complex and heterogeneous documents.
Of course, neither hold a candle to LaTeX in terms of document generation. Bibtex alone is worth it. Unfortunately, the chemistry and environmental journals have all drink the WYSIWYG Kool-Aide. Oh to be publishing in Phys.Rev. B again!
Kind Regards,
Bruce
Sorry, up too late last night.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Let a few big companys use WP for home users and keep the corporate users for yourself. M$ can even charge big bucks for the boxed version.
They will do anything to put the anti-trust thing behide them.
When I started college in 91 (not all that ancient times really) our computer facility used an IBM mainframe, VM/CMS. It was quite a shock for some folks who had never seen a computer before to be stuck on IBM 3270 style terminals, some were real orange screen 3278s, others were ugly greenscreen Esprits with bad 3278 emulation. Many that never worked anyway. "Where do I put my floppy?" HA! you get your A disk on the mainframe, all 1Meg of it, LESS than a floppy. There were PCs, PS/2 386s. (Can you tell our comp guys was an IBM guy? rumor is we got kickbacks from them) At first the PCs only had software that wasn't available on the Mainframe, math apps and such.
;)
But the main word processor was WordPerfect 4.2 for the mainframe. And this is on the block oriented 3270 terminal. You had to get used to the clunky interface and how the cursor moved funky because of the 3270isms. It could do fonts and bold, italic yes, but on printout only. Remember these are character based terminals, "print preview" essentially just showed you margins, maybe some bold, and underline. Font size chagnes? Right. Change your font? Well, print it and hope for the best. Turnaround was attrocious; big jobs (anyting over 20 pages) jobs were automatically routed to one of the "big" printers, where they printed and the operators collected them and put them in bins. So you had to wait for the bin guy to vome around every hour or so to get your work. Saving your files, also fun!!! At that time VM/CMS didn't allow hierarchical filesystems, so all your files were in the same namespace, limited to 8.3 filenames. Good luck remembering what file is what 3 years from now. If you need more than 1.2Mb storage (yeah, nobody does) you can store it offline to tapes... then if you need it, you have to request it to be restored. That might take a day.
Slowly we changed from that. The PS/2s became more plentiful. You could actually print from them once in a while; at first you had to print to a postscript file, then ftp it to the mainframe, then print, but then we got real print servers. Pretty soon we became a real comp lab, with real apps where you could save somethng to a floppy. Now the mainframe is mothballed. Never updated it for y2k. Odd, cause Niketown uses VM/CMS, I should work there.
Have you ever used Ami Pro(now Word Pro)? It's a very capable word processor. It's really too bad that IBM dropped the ball when they acquired Lotus. It would be really nice(cool) if they followed in SUNs footsteps and released it OpenSource(TM). I'm guessing that this will never happen but one could only hope.
Zoid.com
I doubt that Microsoft is going anywhere for years to come. . .
Well, when your sittin' on top of billions in cash you've got a lot of room.
Your statement isn't exactly graduate level economic study. . .
I'm glad you wrote all that so I won't have to. I'd like to add that MSWord was called the "Word Processor from Hello" in my old mathematics department. The equation editor is horrible. Other design flaws for large documents with lots of graphs, charts, tables, and equations is that Word stores everything in one file (last I checked). Maybe that doesn't matter on modern computers, but on a 486 you couldn't get above a few pages of graphs and stuff before things crawled.
I really wish the chem guys would get into LaTeX. I think there are some chem packages available these days. I'd love to see all the sciences using and supporting LaTeX, because there's nothing better for scientific papers. I can compile, view, and edit my LaTeX journal papers comfortably on my iPAQ. There are several good semi-WYSIWYG front ends, like LyX and Scientific Word (or Scientific Workplace, with Maple integration).
-Paul Komarek
PCs for Everyone lists the following prices (all OEM, which requires a hardware purchase):
- WP Office 2002 Standard: $19
- Works 2002 (incl. Word): $89
- Office XP Small Business: $219
- Office XP Pro: $369
I have no idea what HP and Dell pay, but this is one data point.that's... unAmerican!
Notepad. Gets shit done with none of the hassle.
When I finally "upgraded" the OS from Win95 to WinME (I know I know but I was told that it was basically Win98 3rd edition... anyhow) WordPerfect would not function.
Uninstall, reinstall.
Nothing.
One call to tech support later I had a solution given to me: Just pay $100 to upgrade to WordPerfect2000. This did not quite fit my budget at the time (and still doesn't) given the fact that the only added functionality I needed was the ability to work under the operating system I had bought to fix the Microsoft glitch of not recognizing AMD processors in Win95 that were faster than 300MHz.
Needless to say I have been glad to see StarOffice evolve and ecstatic to see OpenOffice mature. If I already bought your software, please don't make me suffer just because time has moved on...
It was fine software but I am not going back. They had their chance and blew it.
Hey!!! the parentheses are good for something
Is word perfect still available for unix?
didn't microsoft buy a large stake of corel stock last year?
No offence, but looking at your post I had to laugh. You complain about the grammar checker in Word yet your spelling and grammar (yes, it is spelt grammar, not grammer) are appalling.
I suggest you switch back to Word and accept all the help it can give you. All of those red and green squiggles aren't there for fun... They indicate a problem.
You mean "$5 plus the increase in tuition incurred by the school's deal with Microsoft". No way does Microsoft just give such low prices without obtaining the revenue somehow else.
contract by MS.
How's that for a big 'screw you' ??
Inserting unusual characters (div, del, gamma, etc...) is very easy in WP. In Word you need to find a seperate program (Character Assistant) and paste through the clipboard.
Um, no you don't. That's one option certaily... but implying it's the only way is rather ignorant.
Reference generation (ToC, references, Figures, etc...) in WP just seem to work. Word's is wonky.
Always just works for me. And I've never really had a problem with figure placement either. Maybe you have the wrong options turn on. Or maybe you just don't "get" the way word operates or anchors images and figures... there are multiple ways, and you're probably using the wrong one for your purposes.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Dell and HP save money buy puting Corel on. But when was the last time someone other than a lawyer used Word Perfect, and Quattro oh yuck. So when they need to learn Word and Excel because they need to know them to get a job in the real world they will have to by MS Office.
These are the same kind of people who were convinced by Microsoft marketing that Word was the right tool for everything; they were the bosses proclaimed that all work would be converted to Word. They were the same people who took years to finally recognize that they had been suckered.
I mean jeezus, you make it sound like I should be saying, "Oh that rascally Word has gone and changed my four-hundred page document again." For people who have actually had to work with it, Wordisms aren't something you can just laugh off or "empathise" with.
Empathize?
I'm supposed to empathize when Word destroys weeks of work?
Empathize?
What kind of tripe is that? And better yet, how does it get modded up to +5?
I'm supposed to laugh it off when word (bless it) wastes another of my weekends while I do the same work again so a client can actually open the document on their version of Word?
No, I'm sorry, you can't undo the damage that Word helpfully (bless it) does to your job and to your free time with Ctrl+Z.
And I'm sorry to say it, your post isn't in defense of Mirosoft; its in defense of the things you know--keeping the things you're comfortable with. Even though they don't work.
Your post is in defense of laziness.
Nothing more.
WordPerfect has advanced features, but that doesn't make it less "friendly" or usable than Word is. You can use WordPerfect in the same way that you do your rascally Word, but you won't. A good tool will go as far as you can take it, but obviously, you don't need to go too far.
So yeah, if you're concerned about making pretty kitty clipart on your self-printed letterhead, Word is for you.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
I have a document that is a society's statement of bylaws. It uses the auto-numbering feature. It has been revised several times by different people as we pass it around.
Somehow, the document has gotten to the point where certain revisions to the auto-numbering simply *cannot* be accepted.
Actually, that's not entirely true, you can accept the revisions and then save the document, and it looks just fine.
But if you close Word, then re-load the document again, you'll find the revision marks are back. What's worse, is that these show up when anybody opens the document, even if it's been emailed and is on a completely different computer. I found out about this in a rather embarrassing way by mailing the supposedly "cleaned-up" version off to some higher ups in the Society for a look-through. It made me look amateurish for not having finished accepting the revisions and leaving obvious mistakes visible. Hey thanks Microsoft!
Now, I suppose I could manually go in and delete the auto-numbering and just manually number that section, but that would mean fighting with a 17 page auto-numbered document with a numbering change on page 3.
Unfortunately, it's gotten to the point now where I don't think I have much other choice. Either that or just re-type the entire flipping thing - which might actually be easier than futzing around with the auto-numbering feature.
I'd give eye-teeth for control codes like WordPerfect had. Of course, that'd make it too easy for anybody else to translate the doc format too, now wouldn't it. Bastards.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Because it was cheaper.
end of story
It looks like Microsoft is heeding Machiavelli's advice.
On the other hand, Linux is taking over the world through cuteness and lovability.
Do you think a major PC manufacturer would bundle as its WP "solution" a word processor that does not do tables or other basic formatting operations? I don't theenk so.
You do NOT have tables in any released version. I just checked the site. Nada.
I see you have tables in some kind of testing version, in your own personal directory on your personal home page. I also saw an undated file there predicting this would be usable in about 6 months. Don't get me wrong - I applaud your efforts. When you get it running and some kind of tested, let us know. So far, Abiword has not been useful, even for grade school homework. It would sure be nice to have a free, robust program that was not insanely bloated like OpenOffice.
But OpenOffice does work and in fact it works real well. It just takes all day to load and hogs memory on any modest machine.
Oh brother. WordPerfect is more functional? What the hell does that mean? Its a frickin word processor- how different can they be? (Answer- THEY ARENT)
I used WordPerfect for years. I switched to Word with Office 2k and I haven't looked back since. I can do everything I need at least as easy in Word as in WordPerfect. Plus I can send my Word documents to anybody without getting a wierd look.
Corel is not distributing WordPerfect for Linux anymore. Their website refers you to Xandros, who say in their FAQ that they do not have rights to distribute WordPerfect or any of the Corel graphics apps and that Corel has stopped distributing them for Linux.
-ZA
>without obtaining the revenue somehow else.
No, they don't. The thing is, if M$ manages to get the kids used to using M$ all the time they'll want to keep using it later when they get a job and have their own $$. It's all about brainwashing mah man...
Probabbly some VP of Dell got drunk with some VP of HP and made a bet: "if you go with Corel then I go too".
And some other VP got too much coke in him when the Corel salesguys are around and probabbly said dumb stuff like "if you (Corel Wordperfect) can last to 2002 then I will ship all PCs with it!" and was caught on tape.
so one after another, the chips fall.
Otherwise, i warn you (everyone) to be wise and cautious. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" -- it is taken out of context of the original meaning -- but still rings very true here. it's a fine line between cautious and paranoia, but when big money is on the line, i'd err on the side of too cautious rather than not sufficiently so.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
A long ways out from LCT I see :)
John
Now what would be really nifty would be for them to start offering Lotus Smartsuite - still an excellent choice even if IBM doesn't seem to be very interested in marketing it. Were it not for file formats I'd take Lotus Word Pro over MS Word any day of the week.
WP is not only better, there's really no contest. The only people who prefer Word are, in my long experience, those who haven't looked at WP since the DOS/Win16 era.
...
For a business that keeps documents a long time, WP provides total file compatibility: every version since WP6.1 (DOS or Win, doesn't matter) uses the same default file format, and there is also a filter to import these files into v5.1. So it doesn't matter which version you're using or what OS, anyone else using WP can read your documents.
Prefer Word's interface? WP has a Word compatibility mode. Use whichever interface you like -- without Word's bugs or deficiencies.
There is an article (probably still on one of the WP info sites) that compares functionality in Word 95 and WordPerfect7, which were concurrent versions. At the time, the list of what WP does easily and Word either has to use a kludge for or can't do at all, came to over 17k in plaintext, and it wasn't complete. Word is continually playing catchup in the features and functionality dept. (Here's a laugh: as of Word97, Word finally does watermarks -- by way of the same kludge used in WP5.1 DOS. WP has had true watermarks since v6.0 [1992])
For eyecandy fun, try making a Word document with all your installed fonts. It tends to choke after about 10 or so in a single document -- actually what it does is decide ALL the subsequent text is in one randomly-selected font. Conversely WP has NO limit on the number of different fonts used in a single document.
And my personal favourite: Word has a core bug that dates to the DOS4 era -- most *severe* Word problems are some manifestation of this bug (document mangling, insisting your HD is full and refusing to save, nuking the FAT on a floppy, and as of Word97 can also nuke the FAT on the HD partition). Someone who bothered to run a sniffer on it said it boils down to Word is writing to a null pointer. Now, if Word has that sort of traceable antique cruft, imagine what else is being packed along, never to be fixed.
Conversely, WP's codebase was rewritten from scratch as of v8 (that's why it suddenly got smaller and faster than the previous version).
I've known people who regularly use WP to handle documents in excess of 50 MEGS, no problem. AFAIK, WP's document size limit is the free space on your hard disk.
I once watched someone struggle for over an hour to reformat a simple one-page document in Word -- mainly trying to rectify some mangled hanging indents and the like. With the help of WP's Reveal Codes, I could have done the same job in 2 minutes flat.
M$Office is Windows' worst enemy -- the installer STILL clobbers system files as of OfficeXP. Want Windows to be as stable as linux? Don't install M$Office, and you're halfway there already. Conversely, WP doesn't typically cause stability issues, partly because the installer is much better about not dumping all over the system directory. Also, when WP is unstable, it's *usually* an indication that the system needs BIOS and/or driver updates. Fix that, and the WP crashes will go away.
I could go on and on
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Anyone who is interested in learning more about WordPerfect, please go to: http://www.wpuniverse.com/
Hello, sir? 1996 is calling. It wants its OS back.
So I suffered. Man, did I suffer. I cursed Word up and down as I spent 45 minutes trying to create a two-column, wrap-around index. Word tried to be "helpful" by automagically turning my page numbering into an ordered list. Yay! It did this about 97 times, even after I thought I'd cleared all the formatting. Clear it, reformat it, hit a carriage return or a backspace, or some other innocuous key, and BAM! there goes Word, helping you out, whether you want it or not.
I pined for WordPerfect. Oh, sure, you can reveal formatting in Word, but it's those non-text areas that jump up and MAUL YOUR ASS in Word. I hate Word with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns. Word is evil. It is the best example I can find of a crappy product winning out over several really good ones (WordPerfect included). WordPerfect is smooth, it's reveal formatting makes formatting simple and straightforward, rather than making you resort to endless menu selections. it's not a page layout app either, but man would my life have been easier with it.
Oh, that reminds me! Tabs! I can't f*#$Y# stand how Word handles tabs. I mean, Jesus Christ, an app as simple as AppleWorks has more capable and far more intuitive handling of tabs. In Word, you have to actually open up a freakin' menu and delve into it in order to use numeric controls to format something you should just be able to format in the ruler bar, but can't because it's such a pain in the ass!
And another thing...!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"I'm gonna mod this pro-MS guy up to prove to myself that I'm 'open minded'."
Contrary to what you might think, this move will only benefit MS. Think about it. Most people have the necessity to work with MS format documents (.doc, .ppt et. al.), since most of the other people seem to be using it. Since they need software that will allow them to read and edit these documents, they will be forced to buy MS works or MS office at the retail price. Under the previous situation, HP would've provided it to them at a big discount most of which would have come out of MS's pocket.
I do all the time (or did, before installing OpenOffice.org), and I'm not a lawyer. I'd much rather have a word processor where I can see the "source" (through the "reveal codes" feature) than one where I have to struggle against the black box (e.g., Word), which forces the user to either agree with invalid assumptions about what the user wants to do, or go through grotesque convolutions to work around those assumptions. Word is a terrible mess of counter-intuitive design; WordPerfect empowers the user. Unfortunately, the fatal-error bugginess prevents me from calling WP "superior" to Word, because stability is a mighty important "feature." (That's a lesson that Opera still needs to learn, IMHO, but I digress...)
Heh, no argument there!
So when they need to learn Word and Excel because they need to know them to get a job in the real world they will have to by MS Office.
Why? Because "they" are such cretins that they can't learn one word processor and apply the same general concepts to another? I learned on WP, and I work at a place that requires Word. Did I do what your assumption implies, and go out and buy Word? Nope, I still use WP. Somebody who can't take the basics from one word processor to another has bigger problems to face in getting a job than learning the "wrong" word processor!
No Laughing Allowed!
Modern word processors are bloated messes. "Creeping featurism" has run rampant. How many of your average users ever learn more than a very small percentage of their word processors features? How many of those features would never have been added if the word processor's company's business model wasn't built on selling their customers an upgrade to a "new, improved" model every couple of years?
I just love how Slashdot headlines are titled to put the most spin on an article which says something else.
In this case, Word (which wasn't mentioned in the article at all) is in the Title of the article.
Let me just clarify something. According to the article, HP is going with Corel WordPerfect instead of Microsoft Works (not Works Suite which includes Microsoft Word) for their HOME systems.
It's a different market. Personally, I don't use any Office suite at home. As I work on one at work (some software company in Washington), I don't feel inclined to be constantly reminded of my work at home.
I still don't understand IBM's strategy with Lotus SmartSuite. They don't sell it in retailers, the gave it with IBM PC in the past(Still maybe).
If they are so "embedded in the Open Source Movement" then they easily could OPEN THE SOURCE OF LOTUS SMARTSUITE.
Or they are too worried about Microsoft?.
After al these years WP innovates en Word still copies. Great development! WP is still top of the line in word processing
More than one item (*cough*xbox*cough*) in your list may be a loss leader, or just seem to act like one.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Microsoft does still own around 25% of corel, as listed on their 2001-2002 financial statements.
I downloaded the trial version. Now what do I do with this 170MB trial.exe???
It would be kinda interesting to know what word processor HP uses on their own internal systems.
We are all packets in the Internet of life!
Unix was not invented in the 1950s you prune!
read a bit, it wasnt about for quite a while after that.
seb
Combine Latex (or lyx) & GLE and you can really wow them.
h tml
e xamples/ind ex.html
n stall.html
Lyx
http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/
GLE
http://www.uark.edu/misc/vlabella/gle/gle.
Check out the examples.
http://www.uark.edu/misc/vlabella/gle/
Even runs on Windows.
http://www.uark.edu/misc/vlabella/gle/i
...or have the ability to write your own print driver and output in absolutely any format. Incidentally, PDF->image is dead easy too.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
WordPerfect is not available in a German version anymore. Therefore it is dead.
If you can't even serve almost 100 million rich Europeans in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, how do you want to convince anyone to take you serious?
Moritz
Is it just me, or does supplying a PC without MS Office or MS Works sound even more naked than one without Windows?
For a lot of people, Windows isn't the issue - it's MS Office that's important. As Apple will tell you. If people start to get the idea that actually you can work WITHOUT MS Office, then MS will have a problem.
I think MS will be VERY upset about this - expect to see HP reverse it's decision after "talks" this MS.
- Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d'
/Include/ContentScript.asp, line 111
A big thank-you to the boys in Redmond for my first smile of the day...Type mismatch: 'CInt'
People should be accounted for as stupid/incompetent until proven otherwise, especially when it comes to computers. Most people just "saves" the file from the toolbar/menu, writes a name, and will not even find the file ever again if the extension should be changed, or the working directory should be changed.
To believe that ordinary people will be able to handle different file formats "like that" (it's really just "like that") is to me like believing in Santa. I just don't see it happening any time soon.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I made an email-inquiry to our local (Austrian) Dell outlet about whether it would be possible to purchase a laptop without Windows preinstalled or with Linux or no OS preinstalled. The short reply was that it is impossible. Same answer from IBM, Gericom, and many others I tried. Pay for something which you first remove after unpacking or die.
It's an excellent suite. Try it, you'll be amazed! We should spamflood them asking them to opensource it, since it seems that few people want to buy it for US$200 a po) any more. Point out that its popularity would go through the roof, especially after it was ported to Unix/X (ie Linux+XFree and OS/X+XFree).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Read the above sentence until your brain comprehends.
Next week: Shoe-tying, it's not just for the big kids anymore!
buy are overpriced non-OS software product... or buy the scaled down version and get the full version free.
I use WordPad because it suits my needs. Only morons need a spell-checker. Ungulates too, I suppose, if you want to split hairs.
Hmm. With cries of `DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run' ringing in my imagination, it's not that hard to figure out what one of the reasons was. It's not as if DR-DOS was welcomed to Windows or anything.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Both suites can read it. What have you got to lose?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If you want OLE-stye operation, try gobeProductive. I presume you're under Windows, because you speak of OLE, which is good because the Linux port isn't really stable yet. gobeProductive is wetter than the wettest dreams of Microsoft's OLE development teams in terms of smooth integration.
As to the VB macros, no, thank you: I'll take the rusty spike in the ear instead. If you wanted to do that, you could hammer GnomeBASIC* into OOo and have a winner. I'd rather have Ruby, or failing that Python, and there are reprobates out there with a PERL fetish.
If you want Office macros to be useful elsewhere, I'd suggest throwing lots of money at Michael Kohn and asking him to write a OfficeBasic-to-ScriptingLingoOfYourChoice translator.
* I was a little miffed that they didn't call it something like Gnome Windowing BASIC so we could have a useful GeeWhizBASIC again.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
An Athlon gobbles less power than a P4 as well (not that this is a major accomplishment, dual P4s make effective room heaters). I think it has seomthing to do with a lower clock-rate for the same throughput.
As to reliability, not a blip. Pounded the life out of it when I first got it, just in case, and not a murmer.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If you want to really reveal codes, unzip your OOo document file (yes, with zip or pkzip) and use a text editor like vi or notepad on the results. Absolutely unbeatable for fixing up broken documents or producing strange effects not supported in the menus/dialogs. Incidentally, my OOo 1.0 and SO 5.2 will both survive reading Word files that kill MS-Office dead in its tracks (freeze or crash-and-burn).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
slashdot needs to update thier corel logo to the urinal/toilet seat one corel went with
looks like a urinal with a toilet seat around it
has nothing to do with superior technology or 'consumer choice' but a well funded team of corporate lawyers (Msfts chief counsel alone receives over $70 mil/year) and a big FUD machine. I say lawyers because of the question of deals: can Msft now retaliate by NOT selling Windows licenses to HP, effectively crippling their PC sales? I don't think they can even begin to get away with that, altho that's always been the 'club' waved over all the small screwdriver shops, the terms and conditions of being a Msft reseller (and being treated like a vassel tributary state). Such a big chunk of Msft revenues come from OEM, retail and other 'channel partner' sales that they're fighting to keep it, as revealed in this licensing expose' re: the dreaded 'nekkid PC' and volume lics.
Anyway, as we've gone from few households with PC's to almost everyone has one (and enough consumers found the last one sucked so bad they're not going to upgrade ever year, no, they'd rather spend the dough on new shoes, thanks anyway), and that saturated market just can't demand enough to keep prices high in face of all the supply, lets now watch the big, hungry sharks circle and kill each other off.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
For the record, I have used MikTeX for several pretty significant projects over the past decade or so, including my own Diploma thesis in CS and my girlfriend's Masters thesis about English and Hindi literature. It's always worked fine, it's easy to install, and the standard kit you get with it is well thought out (e.g., sorting out METAFONT and METAPOST to create a font to render Hindi and to produce diagrams and presentation graphs was a piece of cake).
I wouldn't recommend LaTeX as a tool for everyone, though. While I like it a lot, and it can indeed produce excellent results, it's definitely a typesetting tool and not a word processor. Although it's quite good for separating your content from presentation, you do have to learn quite a bit of needlessly cryptic voodoo in order to sort out the class or package files that do that presentation. Word processors are still much more appropriate for many users.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The great irony, of course, is that the standard class files supplied with LaTeX were never intended to be more than examples of what you could do. The people who wrote them viewed them as a decent showcase, but hardly high quality typesetting. The rest of the world, comparing them to what it had already, bowed down and cried "We're not worthy!" :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Microsoft is about to go down like Ajax when Hercules picked him up from the Earth. Microsoft's only power lies in the fact that so many computers come preloaded with their crap... once it's not that way, no one will assume that everyone is using Microsoft, and thus no one will HAVE to buy their software anymore, which needless to say isn't any better or worse than anyone else's software, it just comes on there, so what ware you gonna do... well now you have a choice. everyone go buy an HP!
sir_haxalot
stuff |
would you suggest a good howto for miktex? i have a friend who wants to learn how to use it, and i dont really have access to his computer at work. as a result i cannot poke around on it and figure out how to get stuff to compile, convert to pdf, etc.
-- john
> Once this thing is really happening, maybe people like you will stop trying to convince me that M$ office is the "standard".
I don't know what your experience has been the past 5 years, but every office I've walked into has had the entire MS Office suite installed. I hear from my peers that this has been their experience as well.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
I have recently purchased a laptop that had XP and the latest MS Works (Works 2000 or something like that) and it does not include Word. The word processor with this version of Works appears to be more closely related to WordPad and does not produce proper word documents.
- DOJ says Microsoft is a Monopoly and needs competition
- Microsoft owns 1/4 of Corel
- MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint etc. is the Standard for business use.
What do you get when you put it all together?
- Microsoft has competition as they do NOT want Corel to go under. This deal will help Corel's future.
- Microsoft makes money off this deal, if Corel is profitable and around.
- Microsoft will sell a version of office/Word ON TOP of the money it made from the Wordperfect sale to the OEM. And even more versions of office will be sold, considering people who had Works with a full version of Word probably would not have purchased a copy of office.
Not to bad of a deal for Microsoft.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why not offer any and all office suites (MS, WP, OO, Star) and let the consumer decide what he really wants/needs?
Granted, the average consumer is still uninformed, but it'd sure be nice to be able to choose what software I get bundled with my computer, instead of having it rammed down my throat whether I want it or not.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
WRONG.
Skills are transferable. Hire someone that can write and
NOT someone that just knows how to use Word.
If the HR person doing the hiring insists on knowledge
of Word during the interview then just get up and
walk away, because the company is more than likely
full of total idiots.
The standard LaTeX command for bold text is \textbf{}. I do agree with you that LaTeX is terrific.
Corel is owned by Microsoft anyway.
I cannot believe that you have ever used wordperfect's equation editor if you made the above statement. (Maybe you've only used it after Corel broke it by trying to make it graphical the way word's is)
I remember using it with old dos-based wordperfect in high school, (circa 1992) and it was miles beyond even current generations of word's equation editor. Basically, it was a stripped-down version of tex that let you just type what you wanted, and have it come out right. Not only that, but I never had to watch the screen to make sure my mouse pointer is over just the right one of twenty different buttons arranged in a little grid. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to use word's interface unless equations represent less than about 5% of the article's vertical space. Until I got to college and learned about TeX, I thought it was clearly the greatest thing ever for producing technical output. I still don't understand those people who would write up physics lab reports, complete with rather verbose equations, in word using the equation editor; I don't know how they could stand it.
WP is not without it's flaws, either. I don't like WP or WORD. The installer for WP has removed Data source names repeatedly on me before. The dsn's are there... then install WP, and poof! They're gone!
You will never "find" time for anything. You must "make" it.
too bad of a deal for Microsoft.
What is it with you people? I see this all the time here.
That is so blatantly untrue...
I've been using AMD processors for over 4 years.
I have NEVER, EVER had any reliability issues related to hardware.
Wow, the only negative bite I got to my troll. I was hoping for a little more excitement.
sorry, the crack was strong and laced with lsd. you are indeed right \bold is incorrect, i also like to use {\bf stuff}. thanks for the correction.
-- john
Um, no it doesn't. Works Suite 2002 does. MS Works 6.0, however, does not. Works Suite 2002 is a new and different program (I think it's designed to replace Office - Small Business Edition). MS Works, which is a fraction of the cost of Works Suite 2002, has always included scaled down word processor and spreadsheet - it's only recently that those two applets have started res. Trust me - I've been using Works since version 2.0 in the DOS days. It never has, and never will, include a full version of Word.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Personally, I think that OpenOffice should pay attention on WordPerfect. Mimicing MS Word means mimicing MS mistakes. But if the market forgave mistakes to MS, it won't do it for OpenOffice.
Specifically I would consider to have ability to type in one of two synchronized windows - one with WYSIWIG pre-view (like regular document window in OpenOffice) and the other in XML tags of the document source code. Or even one more: in the document outline tree like in Outline Vew of MS word (OpenOffice forgot to mimic this specific feature).
Same way I compose documents in Mozilla, sometimes. Well, Mozilla Composer has some serious usability and stability problems and thus cannot be seriously considered for every-day office document composing. At least yet. Plus Mozilla Composer supports only HTML (both as a format *AND* as a style), which is good for being a part of a web browser package, but certainly not enough for carrying more general office document composition tasks.
Less is more !
"(WP-5.1 had a VGA preview WYSIWYG option.)"
... it was great.
Ouch, that brings back fond and painful memeories. That is one feature which has been lost, and I still miss it. I have been a long-time Word Perfect user, from back in the DOS 4.0 days when it was owned by WordPerfect Corp. I did my first real work under WP 5.0/5.1, and the WYSIWYG page view was terrific. I could get a visual representation of my entire book chapter/manuscript, 32 pages at a glance, to make sure I had a consistent look to the document, no errant indentations, margin changes, odd pagination changes, font changes, strange-looking page lengths,
WP 6.0 for Win 3.1 didn't have that feature, and I really missed it. I still do, now that I'm using WP 10.0 on Win98. I can do a two-page view, but that's it. Scrolling through a 200-page manuscript two pages at a time is pretty sub-optimal for getting an overview picture.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
I agree, I have used WordPerfect for many years, up to version 8.0, but I eventually had to switch to Word (well, obviously because of compatibility issues with the rest of the world) but also for me largely because WordPerfect has no Unicode support and I write a lot in Asian languages.
I keep hoping they can change that... have they added Unicode since version 8.0?
Ah yes, I vaguely recall Microsoft sold its interest in Corel some time back.
Open office might be more compatable with word, but it is harder to use thatn Wordperfect. Anyone who has used MS-Word to do numbered documents, would jump for joy when they see how wordperfect does it (it does it RIGHT, that is why the lawers use it. Lots of numbered documents). With word the numbering and formatting are seemingly randomly decided
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I won't comment on the Word v. Wordperfect since I use Latex everywhere, but you can use Latex with Windows natively. I've not used Lyx since vi takes care of my needs in Linux, but on Windows I use TeXnicCenter and the common backend of MikTex.
Scott, Keeper of the Crystal Flame
Microsoft probably told HP to do this. With all the anti-trust shit going on it needs to look like their are other software products out there.
It is standard if you want it to be one.
I got an IBM PC with Lotus (he, I don't even know the name of their word processor) and instead of rushing to buy (or pirate as many do) MSOffice or Word, I gave the product a fair try.
After a couple of months I realized that the product was perfectly suited for my needs.
Standards are set up by industry-wide agreement, not by monopolistic practices and user's apathy and lazyness.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In fact, far more people have far more to fear from Christians, than vice-versa.
Any Christian that you have to be afraid of isn't a good Christian. A Christian is supposed to realize that God loves everyone, him/herself included. Knowing this, Christians are to reflect that love, loving their neighbours as themselves, and even loving their enemies (See Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount).
constant persecution of groups (like homosexuals) that Christians are constantly getting away with... and now with the Christians trying to get evolution pushed out and Christian Creationism taught in High Schools in Georga
I'd ask you to say "Christian Fundamentalists" here. My Church allows homosexuals to be ministers - I'd hardly call that persecution. And most non-Fundamentalist Churches accept evolution (even the Pope has accepted it). It is very unfair to lump the rest of us in with the Fundamentalists when talking about such issues as homosexuality and creationism/evolution, as it scares people away from us on the basis of someone else's actions.
If you've had bad experiences with Christians in the past, I'm very sorry to hear that. For what it's worth, even if you don't believe in God, God loves you, and doesn't want these guys to victimize you.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
...is humorless libertarians. And Slashdot seems to be full of 'em.
Would you prefer "taking market share from competitors" rather than "stealing?" Or is there an even softer phrase you'd like?
And some people still think "political correctness" is an exclusively liberal thing....
Shouldn't you blame MS for this? Obviously WinME broke something that WP relied upon. This is a standard MS tactic. Of course WP could give you a cheeaper upgrade, but is it their fault that you need one?
Lasers Controlled Games!
Couldn't this be more profitable for Microsoft? Certainly OEMs receive a substantial discount for licensing massive bulk quantities of MS Works. The question is how many consumers will have to go out and buy Office or Works at full retail? Depending on the exact OEM discount, Microsoft could make a larger profit if a high enough percentage of new PC buyers are forced to go out and buy the software off-the-shelf.
Dan East
For example, you don't use multiple returns (enter key) to create a new page. Use a page break ([hard page] or control-enter in wp51 days).
Another example, you don't break lines and use tabs to create indented paragraphs (WP has [indent]; I still remember it is F4 key in WP5.1dos). Sadly, I still people doing this when they type emails. Each user has a different screen resolution on his PC. If I break/tab lines in a email on a low-res screen, the recipient on a higher-res screen will see words and tabs interspersed on a line... weird... same applies to the document sizes and orientation
And I still see many Word documents with trailing returns at the end of the document. In WP, [HRt]
[HRt]
[HRt]
[HRt]
[HRt]
is ugly and undesirable.
Such incorrect use of features does not make a document robust. If, say, i change from portrait to landscape, all formattings go haywire.
WP has taught me to use the minimum correct functions to achieve the desired effect, and achieving document robustness. It makes me a better wordprocessor user. I am very glad that I learnt WP back in '90 as a WP5.1DOS user, and learnt LaTeX back in my Uni days in '96.
Non-WordPerfect users may not appreciate what I wrote above...
And for the life of mine I don't see how this is bad for me.
I haven't used Office at all at home(MSOffice free since 1995), at work MSOffice it is a nice Excell and Word viewer and it is great to write CVs. What for are all those buttons and menus beats me.
I am sure there are 20 people (including MS Word developpers) that use all those wonderful options. But how many users really exploit Word almighty power?
My point is: as long as I can write a two page document once in a while, why should spend $$$$ in Office???
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
With that said, I'm glad to see Microsoft take one in the shorts, however small. Hmm, that works on two levels.
I agree with the multitudes who point out that OpenOffice might be a better choice, but then again, maybe they were thinking about liability.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Export to a PDF file with page thumbnails, using Adobe Acrobat.
to be honest, most of the benefit comes if you're writing documents with lots of mathematical formulae or tables or something in them. LaTeX is really, really nice for research papers or something, but a lot of office documents place more emphasis on formatting than on "meaning of the formatting". They want a letterhead here, and *this* font, not "put a header on this page and use the title font".
Finally, TeX's coolest features, like setting up automatic page counters and whatever, suffer from a really ugly, archaic language.
May we never see th
I believe that your"Bzzzzt! Wrong." comment is inaccurate. The item you cited from Yahoo showing institutional investors deals with the common stock traded under the symbol "CORL" rather than the non-voting, convertible, preferred shares (all 24 million of them) which I believe MSFT still owns. I have not been able to locate anything via Google yet to confirm your contention. I am also waiting on an email reply from CORL's investor relations.
If you have a cite that actually says that the convertible, non-voting, preferred shares were sold, please post it. Otherwise, you have made an ass of yourself.
I am not sure who is correct yet. I only know that your arrogant and brash "Bzzzzt!" b.s. doesn't say what you think it does. You only got modded up to +5 because a pile of editors were as ignorant as you regarding what the Yahoo site actually meant.
Put up or shut up.
guac-foo
Lots of petrified grits
A friend told me that he had an important MS Word file that he could not open in MS Word. He opened it in Open Office, saved it as an MS Word file, and then he was able to open it is MS Word. OO can repair Word file that are too corrupted for Word! It's that stunning MS software quality again; it stuns you; you are immobile and can't get anything done.
I had a Word document that could not be edited so that it would look right. Things kept jumping around for no apparent reason. After a few frustrating minutes, I opened it in Open Office. There was no quirkiness, I could do what I wanted.
Conversely WP has NO limit on the number of different fonts used in a single document.
As I recall, from back in the 6.0 days, WP even came with a small wp-script program (what was that called?) that would generate a document with an example of every single configured font. Of course I had half a zillion fonts installed, so it took a while to generate and print, but it worked great.
I've always liked WP; I even bought a copy for Linux, probably about version 7, many years ago. It worked just fine, and had no trouble reading my DOS-created documents.
Many, many people trust microsoft.
They happen to be non-technical (aka, stupid) users who are dazzled by microsoft's marketing....but nonetheless they trust microsoft.
That's nothing. I couldn't afford an abacus. I had to use my fingers and toes.
No product is perfect, and every product has some feature that outshines all its competitors :)
.MSI installer isn't entirely compatible with Win9* (this problem is NOT limited to WP). The symptom is that after you run .MSI-installed programs a few times, the shortcuts start complaining that the program is not installed, and refuse to run the apps. However the WP2002 installer is aware of the problem and has a "repair" option which fixes all its shortcuts. The real problem is that on Win9*, the .MSI installer leaves install/uninstall info in the shortcut, that Win9* doesn't understand.
:)
I'm not familiar with the bug you mention -- what are these data source names you're talking about??
The nly installer bug I've seen is really a Win9* problem, in that the !@#$%!!
Now, if you want a REAL uninstall job, use Word97. If its null-pointer bug ever strikes while you're saving a file (basically, it fails to close the file on disk), it can nuke the FAT on that partition, and it's not recoverable with consumer-level tools. Now that's a helluva uninstaller
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
WordPerfect 8 (both Windows and Linux versions) has been localized into several European languages. It is WordPerfect 10, after Corel had gone into a full retreat, that does not have German language version.
WordPerfect 8 also provides very nice CJK (double-byte) supports. Those supports were broken in version 10.
Yep, the "allfonts" macro. Worked absolutely great. When I was doing a lot of printing, I had close to 400 fonts installed.. but even so, it only took a couple minutes to generate the document, even on a lowly 486. Printing was another matter, Print Mangler couldn't handle it and had to be babied along a few pages at a time.
:)
I tried having Word print the same document -- that's how I learned about its font limitations. 100 pages of Whamby samples, erk!!
And remember to "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs"
Concurrent versions of WP use the same file format regardless of platform -- DOS, Win, *NIX, Mac, whatever. Also, every WP version since 6.1 saves in the WP6.1 format by default. Sure is nice for passing documents around among entirely unlike setups!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"Ed is the standard text editor."
And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed /usr/ucb/vi /usr/bin/emacs
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990
Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:
golem$ ed
?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?
---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.
ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!
When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!
TEXT EDITOR.
When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their "edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.
Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!
?
--
I romp with joy in the bookish dark
However (and I've seen no one mention this so far), when I leave my office, I get to go home to a Macintosh. There, I use Microsoft Word for Mac -- and I have to tell you guys, it's 5x better than Word for Windows. Inexplicable, perhaps, but it's true.
I'm not saying this is a perfect product, mind you ... but it's far less annoying than the Windows equivalent.
Oh, and if Word for Mac is 5x better than Word for Windows, then Microsoft Entourage for Mac is 10x better than Outlook!
Breakfast served all day!
Just don't pretend like you actually know something. Don't pretend that 99% of people are as stupid and lazy as you are.
With each successive post, you show how little you actually know about writing, about desktop publishing, about creating books & about computers in general.
Girl, don't go away mad,
Girl, just go away.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
My father is also a lawyer, who has worked in various state government institutions for over 20 years and they've been using WordPerfect for as long as I can remember. Why? because WordPerfect has an add-on available soley for lawyers that adds a huge amount of funcationality for them and its' been around for a long time. Although private law firms may or may not use it, government offices most certainly do, although right now they're under going a massive overhaul of the system done by Computer Associates and in the end they may or may not still be using it.
I've just asked few mom-age people about WordPerfect and got the typical answer: "Back in DOS I've been enjoying in WordPerfect. Despite non-WYSIWYG (or quasi-WYSIWIG) UI, the usability logic was more intuitive and more goal-oriented then even modern MS Word. If it would be a chance to choose I'd certainly get WordPerfect. Just keep me two sync windows: one with pre-view and the other with pseudo markup code - I want to control and understand my work."
I don't know if that would be the "typical answer" that a "mom-aged" person would give. I would think it'd be more like "I use Word, it works alright."
Go to http://netseller.com/
Look for the Software section on the blue left hand frame. $20 plus cheap USPS shipping.
Netseller has a lousy site, but they are a pretty good company. They sell a lot of junk and they deal on eBay a lot, or used to. They get a spotlight back during the UPS strike some years ago when they were on Good Morning America (I think it was).
So the word 'perfect' is going to replace all other words? I'm dubious.
There is a MAJOR issue here. Our writing tools are of very poor quality. MS Word is worthless to me; it is too quirky; it can take 3 hours to fix small problems that arise when trying to do something simple. I haven't tried Framemaker. I haven't tried Adobe InDesign.
I still use Ventura Publisher version 5 because it can use editable ASCII text files for content and markup. I need to be able to hand edit the thousands of words of text. After version 5 of Ventura the ASCII files are no longer hand-editable. When I complained to Corel about this, I got a know-nothing reply. I own Ventura 8 and WP 8, but don't use them.
Most people who make decisions about the design of writing tools are not content producers. Sure, they are writers; they write email messages to their mom. When I look at the design of major content producer programs, I see a lot of features designed by people who are not content producers. It's "Oh, this should be good enough".
I support your idea of having keystroke combinations to do everything in OO. I suggest having configurable combinations. I'd like the WordStar/Borland control-key commands. That saves 15% from my editing time, and I do a lot of editing.
Somewhere I think I've seen something like "export every page to a separate PDF". (You could do this with a macro.) Then you could use the thumbnail folder function of Windows XP. It is possible that ThumbsPlus can display PDF files; or maybe there are other Thumbnail viewers that can.
Definitely you are asking for something that would be useful for everyone who works on long documents, even if they don't realize it yet.
There is a function in Adobe Acrobat called "Extract Pages". Obviously the Help is written by a technical writer, however, since the Help says nothing about the purpose of doing that, or how it works. It does not seem to extract anything.
Notice that the thumbnail function of Acrobat supplies thumbnails in a re-sizable window. You can have the rows and columns that you want; but I see no way to change the size of the thumbnails to something of more reasonable size; it's another example of thoughtless design by people who have never produced a long document, I'm guessing (not Adobe itself, the designers).
WP can read its old file formats, assuming that you don't care about formatting. WP 6 for Windows (the last version of WP I used on a regular basis) made GROSS changes to the formatting of WP 5 DOS files - to the point of leaving the file unreadable.
To be sure, WP might have improved since. But it certainly left a bad taste in my mouth at the time.
I think you may have had something else going on, or had a corrupted filter or something. WPWin6.0 was severely buggy (Novell fixed most of what ailed it with v6.1, in particular the speed and display glitches), but import/export of WP5.1 files was never a problem, at least not for myself or anyone else I know. Not even with WP5.1 documents with embedded fonts, built under Bitstream Facelift. Once in a while really complex partial-page columns wouldn't come out right, but that was the worst I ever saw.
I've horsed files back and forth among WP5.1, 6.1 (both DOS and Win versions), and 8.0 for years. WP5.1 DOS is still my major editor for large swaths of text, and WP8 for adding stuff the old DOS version can't readily do (fonts and the like).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
GOD, I had to get that out. This is a GOOD thing!
BTW, anyone else using WordPerfect 3.5 Enhanced Demo for Mac? It is the BEST thing I have ever used. Except of course WP [2-5] on DOS and Windows 3.1. Ah, the good old days.
Try this page. It's only the OS they licensed to Xandros.
my dad works in law. he complains that more and more often, legal offices / judges are switching to word because its easier to use? anyways, he prefers wordperfect primarially because of reveal codes, and uses it for most of his work. but, he uses ms word to read documents others send him. (interestingly, they just got a bunch of brand new dells, but I'm not sure if they had WP.)
Why do you think they call it "WordPERFECT????"
1 Given that the world economy is sluggish and the U.S. economy is in a recession, it's probably safe to say that the $18 billion loss from 1998 wasn't recovered in 1999.
2 In fact, since income from MS-Windows, MS-Office, and Xbox have all been underwhelming recently, it's hard to see which products are bringing in money for the company.
3 1998's book keeping produced a discrepancy of about $20 billion.
If the same accounting practices continued up till the Enron publicity, then it's safe to say that a similar adjustment (say minus $10-25 billion) can be applied for these years.Combine these three and, odds are, this puts the company into the red for 4 years running. At best there are occasional visits to the break even point, but these visits wouldn't do more than barely dent the accumulated debt.
Lastly, the company has grown through acquisition of products and smaller companies. Most 'innovations' or their key components have been acquired from outside by deals (Access, Frontpage, Explorer, DOS, disk compression) or via BSD-like licenses.
There are few, if any, markets to grow into now and acquirable competition/innovations are largely out of the picture. Given the move of focus onto engineering marketing campains and legislative campains it looks like their time may be up...
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If you check, the version of Works that includes Word is a Suite priced at 109.00.
The regular version of works does not include Word and is 54.00. This is probably the one that would have been included for free.
I love abiword and I use it whenever someone sends me word documents. (I can load something in abiword 20 times before Open Office even brings up the first window.)
One feature that would be helpful (though this is lower priority than tables, probably) is the ability to have a console-only mode. This could be as simple as a command line tool to convert the abiword files to text for viewing. But being able to edit the file on a text console would be nice, even if you didn't have all features in the X-window version. I think getting something as smooth as the old WP5.1 on DOS could be an ideal.
People like you (the 21 of you ;-) ) should rush to get the latest Word or Office copy.
People like me (the other 20000000) should sit down for half an hour and evaluate other options. Most people don't do that and simply follow the herd.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And I think your comment deserved friendlier moderation than that - especially given that mine got upped.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I can load something in abiword 20 times before Open Office even brings up the first window.
But why? Why would you do that?
The unfortunate downside to Word--which we have seen in more than one high profile case--is its propensity for keeping invisible records of revisions within a document.
The last thing you want to send out with a draft contract or other legal document is a complete revision history.
OK, but do you really send out Wordfiles? Don't you send out either printed copies or PDF files? I can hardly believe this... Well, even if you need the possibility to edit documents, you can still use Acrobat Exchange. Platform independent and no outdated revisions in the background... as long as you always choose "Save as". Which, btw you could do in Word as well and get rid of "history"...
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)